Straight A’s – 7inch EP

Straight A’s – Smear Campaign, Fuck The Troops, Pretty Ugly // Tonight’s Entertainment, Reservations, Praying Mantis Season (Noise Pollution Records) 2009. Another amazing release on the Noise Pollution label, this 7inch by The Straight A’s is straight up going on my Best of 2009 list. I know it’s early in the year still, but I don’t see it getting much better than this. What The Straight A’s seem to understand, that many of their contemporaries forget, is keeping it concise. None of these songs clock in at over a minute and a half. Why should they? The Straight A’s make their point and move on. Why stick around? They have more important things to consider. The songs on the EP are generally built around a fluid bass/drum pattern with all kinds of guitar noise careening over the top. The lyrics are succinct, to the point and don’t follow any verse/chorus bullshit. The approach is very similar to what Watt, Boon and Hurley were doing in the 1980s even if the sound is relatively different. From what I understand, The Straight A’s are working on an album and I bet it’s gonna have like 10,000 bad-ass songs on it. That’s cool cuz I wore out my copy of Double Nickels on the Dime years ago and nobody has of yet come up with a worthy follow-up. Available at Noise Pollution.

RIP Last Days of Man on Earth

Last Days of Man on Earth was a music blog run by Joe Stumble between 20th of February, 2006 and 1st of April, 2011. It now exists as an online archive and testament to awesomeness. ALL MP3s were removed some time ago. Drop Joe a line if you have any questions at joe@lastdaysofmanonearth.com

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Hardcore Podcasts

September of 2010 I put together eight Hardcore Podcasts. You can check them out here if you are interested. For more insight into how I came up with the years 78-90 for the First Wave you can read about The Hardcore Superiorty Myth.